Some pens from a new guy!

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guitarchitect

Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2020
Messages
61
Location
Toronto
A while back I got a lathe, but never got it out of the box for a variety of reasons (I have two kids under 4...) I always had it in mind to start turning pens as it always seemed like a really interesting/satisfying way to kill time, and a pause in busy work-life and the kids finally getting back to daycare left me with a bit of free time and a renewed optimism for a new hobby. So I got a starter kit from a local supplier for myself for christmas, built a stand for the lathe and finally got it out of the box, and in january turned my first items ever, a set of five slimlines! Pretty fun!

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I then got 5-Burl combo pack and started turning Baron kits, and made a couple bland beginner ones and a nice stabilized amboyna burl one at the end of january that I gave to a family friend. Looking at it now I wish I could swap it for a better one but oh well!

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Then I thought it might be fun to try some dye stabilized box elder burl, and got a starter Starbond CA finish kit and some algonquin pens...

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Then I thought it might be fun to try Buckeye Burl... it's really simple but I love the dimensionality and natural color in the wood!

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Then I thought I would try some hybrid/fusion blanks, which was REALLY neat!

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Then I got some Luxor kits (my wife really wants a click pen), and after turning a companion buckeye pen to the one above I had ALMOST enough blank for a second pen, but not quite enough. I had already started squirreling away a bunch of offcuts from other pens I had turned, so it seemed simple enough to glue some together. I wanted to break it up a bit and didn't have any ebony, but i did have a copper sheet that has been sitting in my architecture school supplies for ~15 years that I never found a use for. So I used it as a spacer for the colored burl bits, and cranked out the following... I also upgraded my CA finish setup to gluboost and I'm pretty floored with the results it gives!

Buckeye-Teal_LR.jpg


That's black-dyed box elder burl, electric blue double-dyed box elder burl (leftover from the algonquin above). I'll be giving that one to my dad as a belated birthday gift!

So that's it - a fairly busy and productive first 8 weeks! It's definitely a lot of fun, and contrary to the time it takes to do larger woodworking projects I really love how quickly I can have an idea and see the results - so far I do glue-up on day one, and turn them on day two, and it's only an hour or two total. Pretty great! I've ordered some resin blanks as I really like the accent band look, and would love to hear if anyone has any recommendations about what I should try next!
 
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8 weeks ????? Well, you compressed my first 4 years into that!

A wonderful trail through the forest. Your progress is a joy to witness. Excellent pens, and excellent exploration.

Have FUN!
 
Welcome to IAP !! .... a little late since you joined us 6 months ago .... but then you didn't poke your head up until now !!

You have accomplished a lot in a short time and it's all very well done ?

The Luxor is my favorite kit. . I very much like the one you made and show above !!! . Very well done !!

You want a suggestion ? . Try a single barrel Cigar pen .... there is a tutorial in the Resources part of this website.
Perhaps build a Cigar kit first to get the hang of it before going to single barrel.

And then ? . . Well, it might then be time for you to get into kitless. . I think you are headed in that direction.

Keep showing your work ... it will be fun to follow your progress.
 
magpens said:
Welcome to IAP !! .... a little late since you joined us 6 months ago .... but then you didn't poke your head up until now !!

You have accomplished a lot in a short time and it's all very well done ?

The Luxor is my favorite kit. . I very much like the one you made and show above !!! . Very well done !!

You want a suggestion ? . Try a single barrel Cigar pen .... there is a tutorial in the Resources part of this website.
Perhaps build a Cigar kit first to get the hang of it before going to single barrel.

And then ? . . Well, it might then be time for you to get into kitless. . I think you are headed in that direction.

Keep showing your work ... it will be fun to follow your progress.
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Haha - yeah I have been lurking for a while! Been on and off the forum for a couple years actually, I have a bad habit of getting really deep into certain topics for a while and then I either jump in with both feet or forget about it. I think I got the lathe in 2018 but kids and work always got in the way... glad I kept coming back to it! I think I joined the forum around the time I bought some pen-making books.

No kidding on the Luxor - it was one of your posts that I found that made me jump into that one! I was interested to try out the click mechanism - the only things I don't like about it is (a) the mechanism itself "scrapes" a bit and (b) it seems to attract fingerprints! It doesn't seem to have a chrome/plating finish like the rest of the pen for some reason. I have a post of yours saved in a notebook somewhere describing potential mods for the click mechanism! I do wish, though, that there was a luxor without the fluted design... i ordered some sierras today to see what those clicks are like.

Single tube cigar looks awesome, thanks for the heads up! I'll definitely give that a shot. I think I'll save the kitless for now, have to work through my current stock before I start getting more toys to play with (I still don't have a chuck for my lathe). I'll probably do a 360 herringbone before I tackle that, and might continue to play with metals + inlays - I have in mind something like the Luxor I posted but with malachite or some other stone inlay between the metal bands rather than burl/acrylic. But that may be a ways off!

Being a fellow canadian I'd love to hear your experience with ordering kits from the US, and if you have any recommended suppliers that go beyond what we can get up here!
 
leehljp said:
The copper spacers and the added blue color make that an exceptionally attractive pen!
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thanks! I definitely lucked out on that... it was actually inspired, in a roundabout way, by a duck called the blue-wing teal. long story short: I'm the same age my dad was when he won his first major wildlife sculpture award (he does duck/bird/fish/wildlife carving). he won with a blue-winged teal, which is a grey/black/yellow-ish bird with a little teal bit poking out under its wing. i was trying to come up with something to give him belatedly for his birthday, and had settled on a buckeye Algonquin but realized I could probably do a bit better. the stars seemed to align just right, as the color scheme/theme is a really good match. He doesn't even know I'm turning pens so I'm hoping it'll be a neat surprise!
 
guitarchitect said:
Being a fellow canadian I'd love to hear your experience with ordering kits from the US, and if you have any recommended suppliers that go beyond what we can get up here!
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I've ordered from many of the US suppliers. . My recommendations would be Exotic Blanks, BearToothWoods, and Berea, but others are good too.
PSI is another possibility but I am just not keen on any of their product designs, except 30 Caliber Bolt Action and one or two others. . I can tell you more if you tell me explicitly what kits you are after. . I like to buy blanks from US vendors because of the much greater variety ... acrylic ones.

What aspects of my experiences ordering from US do you want to hear about ? . Of course, shipping is expensive, and you run into paying duty, taxes, and service charges at this end when your package gets delivered. . You're actually better off buying in Canada if you can get what you want.
One source other than WWW is Lee Valley (Berea products only) .... have you bought from Lee V. ?

If you like the Luxor, but prefer no flutes, then have a look at the Berea pen called the "Sierra Super Button Click" ... yes, that's the name exactly.
Berea doesn't have much imagination when it comes to naming their pen kits, but they do sell very good products in general. . I got introduced to Berea by buying my first kits from Lee Valley right here in Canada. . Unfortunately, Lee Valley has not kept up with the newly released kits from Berea.

Frankly, it is the flutes on the Luxor that got me in ... as well as the partially hidden click mech (compared to fully exposed in all other kits using it).
Oh ... I also don't like the white plastic refill extender, which can get lost at the time of refill replacement. . Also the plating "colour" you mentioned.
But instead of the white plastic, I made one out of a short brass rod 3/4" long with an axial hole 1/4" long glued onto the clicker so it can't get lost.
I highly recommend that modification .... can tell you more details if you are interested ... it is quite easy to do on the lathe, but you will need a chuck in your headstock as well as the Jacobs drill chuck in your tailstock. . For this purpose, the headstock chuck could even be another Jacobs with a Morse Taper adapter to fit your headstock (maybe Morse Taper 3, but probably Morse Taper 2 for a bench top wood lathe). . I can advise ... let me know.

If you ever want to get into very high quality kits, then Dayacom kits are outstanding ... espec. their Jr. Emperor, Jr. Antony, and others. . These are almost jewelry quality and sell in the US for upwards of $30 .... some available at Exotic Blanks and BearToothWoods. . Dayacom (Taiwan) does not sell except in ridiculously large quantity, so not practical for little guys like us to buy directly from them. . They have a website which is hard to navigate. . Worth looking at it to get some ideas of what is actually available if you have lots of $$.

Anyway ... lots to talk about ... whenever you have the time.
 
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Thanks for the kind words everyone! Also I didn't realize he's a member of the forum here, big thanks to @mg_dreyer for his youtube series which has been a tremendous help!

Some more experiments!

I was unhappy with how plain this natural stabilized maple burl was so I got out my aniline dyes, attempting to mimic a sunburst-style finish that is used on electric guitar bodies. I did some additional experiments with curly maple but it didn't have enough figure, so I'll be playing around again tonight with some fiddleback blanks! I think there's too much black - essentially i used ebony black on the ends, electric blue in the middle and overlaid a couple layers of black CA on the ends. In daylight it's actually pretty incredible, if feels like you're peering into a little underwater world!

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For those curious these are the Luxor pen kit from William Wood-Write in Canada. I realized that one of the things that makes me lukewarm about it is the lack of bands like the sierra has, so I busted out some brass stock and made some out of wenge for this sapele pen. I really screwed up the finish on this one (the brass was shiny like the copper one above, but due to me experimenting with how to use CA to fill the open grain of the wenge, i was kind of all over the place with sandpaper grits and layers of CA)... but I think to approach worked and is a nice variant on my first banding experiment. I'll probably disassemble this one and either redo the finish or put it into the experiments drawer!

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I am really impressed they all great. I have been making pens for a long time now and I think you are already in the fast lane. Keep it going I look forward to seeing your future work.
 
guitarchitect said:
Thanks for the kind words everyone! Also I didn't realize he's a member of the forum here, big thanks to @mg_dreyer for his youtube series which has been a tremendous help!
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The pens look great. Very well done and professional. Congratulations. Thanks for the mention, but more importantly thanks for your time and watching. I appreciate it. And glad you like GluBoost - I have never looked back. Keep posting and we all look forward to keeping in touch.
 
Another dying experiment, this one on fiddle back maple. Will be interesting to mix colors once I have more jars to store premixed dye (everything I have is powdered).
 

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